It is inevitable that consumers and businesses break promises to each other. When it is the consumer who breaks a promise, the business—a repeat player with economies of scale—may hire a collection agency or law firm (also repeat players with economies of scale) to hound the consumer. When it is the business that breaks a promise, the consumer may hire a lawyer, if the promise is sufficiently valuable to justify the cost of the lawyer. Affordability of legal services is a global and national problem, limiting consumers' ability to effectively resolve disputes. Thus, for instance, only approximately 1 in 4,000,000 AT&T customers takes it to arbitration—even though their customer agreement bars them from going to court instead.
Lacking legal representation, the consumer may proceed pro se. However, consumers are not prepared to interpret agreements, which are heavily slanted in favor of businesses that drafted them. The result is that, as a practical matter, consumers have often lack a means to insist that everyday promises be kept. For example, telecommunications consumers face steep disadvantages. While eighty-four percent of U.S. households subscribe to pay TV, sixty two percent of consumers have only one main choice of cable provider. This market power, and the high capital and regulatory barriers to entry, allows the incumbents to remain profitable despite persistently low customer satisfaction. Thus, there is a widely- and long-felt need amongst consumers to remedy the service problems they experience, for example, with telecommunications companies.
Various conventional approaches exist that attempt to resolve consumer needs for assisted dispute resolution. For example, U.S. Publication No. WO2006017496 A3 to Rule discloses a method and system for designing online alternative dispute resolution processes. In the field of government filings and litigation, U.S. Pat. No. 7,035,830 to Shaikh discloses an electronic filing system operated by a governmental agency that accepts the electronic filing of certain documents as if the filings were done in person. U.S. Pat. No. 6,694,315 to Grow discloses an online document assembly and docketing system useful for legal proceedings. Websites such as nCourt.com allow consumers (among others) to file small claims lawsuits online.
In another field, two new companies use human advocates to seek favorable resolution of individual disputes. In particular, AirHelp apparently gathers data from air travelers on their flights, finds those flights in databases of delayed and cancelled flights, compares the delay and cancellation data to statutory thresholds (especially in the E.U.) beyond which compensation is mandated, and attempts to obtain on the traveler's behalf the compensation to which she is entitled. The other company, Fixed, helps recipients of parking tickets. The ticketed driver uploads photographs of his car and the ticket to Fixed, which attempts to fight the ticket on the driver's behalf.